1. Paint the house. Hands down, the most commonly offered curb appeal advice from our real estate pros and appraisers is to give the exterior of your home a good paint job. Buyers will instantly notice it and appraisers will note it on the valuation. Just make sure you stay within the range of accepted colors for your market. A house that’s painted a wildly different color from its competition will be marked down in value by appraisers.
2. Have the house washed. Before you make the investment in a paint job, though, take a good look at the house. If it’s got mildew or general grunge, just washing the house could make a world of difference. Pressure washing makes the house look bright and clean in addition to getting rid of unsightly things like cobwebs, which may not be seen from the yard but will detract from the home’s cleanliness when seen up close.The cost to have a professional cleaning should be a few hundred dollars—a fraction of the cost of having the house painted.
3. Trim the shrubs and green up the yard. Put a lot of emphasis on landscaping, such as cutting down overgrown bushes and replacing them with leafy plants and annuals mulched with beautiful reddish-brown bark.
4. Add a splash of color. It could be a flower bed of annuals by the mailbox, a paint job for the front door, or a brightly colored bench. or an Adirondack chair
5. Add a fancy mailbox and house numbers.An upscale mail box and architectural house numbers or an address plaque can give your house a distinctive look that stands out from everyone else on the block.
6. Repair or clean the roof. The roof is one of the first things an appraiser looks at in assessing the condition of a home. He’ll look at other houses in the neighborhood to see if there are a lot of replaced roofs and see if the subject house has one as well. If not, he’ll look for curls in the shingles or missing shingles. You can pay for roof repairs now, or pay for them later in a lower appraisal; appraisers will mark down the value by the cost of the repair. That could knock thousands of dollars off your appraisal.
7. Put up a fence.A picket fence with a garden gate to frame the yard is an asset. A fence has more impact in a family-oriented neighborhood than an upscale retirement community, Day in a day out, a fence is a plus. Expect to pay $2,000 to $3,500 for a professionally installed privacy fence.
8. Perform routine maintenance and cleaning. Nothing sets off subconscious alarms like hanging gutters, missing bricks from the front steps, or lawn tools rusting in the bushes. It makes even the professionals question what else hasn’t been taken care of.
A house is worth less if the maintenance isn’t done. Those little things can add up and be a very big detractor. When people say, ‘I’d buy it if it weren’t for all the deferred maintenance, what they’re really saying is, I would still buy it if you reduce the price.
